Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University
THE WANDERER
The Wanderer exists in one manuscript -- the Exeter Book, from
about 975. But it almost always appears in translation among the Old
English poetry in any anthology of English literature.
The elegiac mood of this Anglo-Saxon poem is created by the description
of the "eard-stappa" (earth-stepper) who is the sole survivor of a
"fierce war-slaughter." Much is made traditionally of the occurrence of
the Ubi sunt? trope -- the series of lamenting questions ("Where
are the snows of yesteryear?"; "Where have all the flowers gone?"; etc.).
Most worth noting, though, in terms of "poetry," is the series of images
concerning binding and enclosures:
- "it is a fine custom for a man to lock tight his heart's coffer, keep
closed the hoard-case of his mind...."
- "men eager for fame shut sorrowful thought up fast in their breast's
coffer."
- "I ... have had to fasten with fetters the thoughts of my
heart...."
The earth in this poem "covers" and "binds" his "gold-friends" now dead.
He sees the ruin, which once contained scenes of joyous gatherings and
now is being "bound" with thick snow, and says, "all this earthly
habitation shall be emptied." So part of the grim mood of this poem is
created by the subtle implication that the Wanderer, like the ruin, will
eventually too lose those warm scenes inside, his memories of happier
times, when the enclosure that is himself becomes similarly "bound" and
covered.
Pope, John C. Seven Old English Poems. NY: W.W. Norton and Co.,
1981. 28-32.
The Wanderer. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol.
I. 5th ed. NY: W.W. Norton and Co., 1986. 78-81.
Medieval Index